Myth: No Child Left Behind has unreasonable requirements for what constitutes a “highly qualified teacher.”

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states must provide “highly qualified teachers” for all classes.
            Now No Child Left Behind is being blamed for arcane and sometimes bizarre state rules that deprive children of good teachers.
            Here’s one example, from a column by Samuel Freedman in the New York Times: “Despite his doctorate in classics from Harvard, despite his 22 years teaching in high school and college, despite the classroom successes he had so demonstrably achieved with his Latin students in Santa Cruz, [Jefferds Huyck] was not considered “highly qualified” by California education officials under their interpretation of the federal No Child Left Behind law.” In the article, Huyck explained that didn’t want to take what he considered to be irrelevant and unhelpful education courses in order to earn his state teacher’s certification.
            California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell seems to blame NCLB for putting the state and teachers like Huyck in that situation. In an October 2006 Fresno Bee news story about a meeting of educators and parents on how to improve the education reform law, the superintendent recalled a visit  to a school in South Central Los Angeles that was unable to hire enough teachers in tough-to-fill subjects. According to the story, “he said about 100 students who were supposed to be in math and science classes instead were watching a movie on the Louisiana Purchase.”
            Some speakers at the meeting “complained that because of the way NCLB is written, an aerospace engineer wouldn't be allowed to teach general science classes because he wouldn't have the proper qualifications. ‘We'd be the first ones who would have to reject him,’ said Rick Carder of the Grant Joint Union High School District in Sacramento.”
            So what are these overly prescriptive and inflexible provisions that No Child Left Behind requires of teachers?

To be considered “highly qualified” under No Child Left Behind, a teacher must have:

1. A bachelor's degree.
2. Demonstrated knowledge, as defined by the state, in each core academic subject he or she teaches.
3. Full state certification, as defined by the state.

            That’s it.
            About the first requirement, most parents and students would be surprised that it took a federal law to require that teachers demonstrate content knowledge. But left to their own devices, many states would or did issue “emergency certification” to teachers who did not have significant coursework in the field they were teaching.
            As for the second requirement, for the most part, a major or the equivalent of a major in the subject suffices. But if a teacher doesn’t have that, the No Child Left Behind law permits states to develop standards that teachers can meet short of having a major in the subject. For example, most states allow teachers to take a test to demonstrate subject matter competency. Veteran teachers also can demonstrate content knowledge through the state-defined HOUSSE standard, which stands for High, Objective, Uniform State Standard of Evaluation. Unfortunately, too many states have used this provision in the law to define away the problem of teachers teaching subjects in which they have never demonstrated competence. For example, some states have said that if a teacher has taught algebra, the teacher has demonstrated competence—even if that teacher never took a math class in a college or university math department. (For a fascinating look at this issue, see the National Council on Teacher Quality report, “Searching the Attic.”)
            The third requirement is the real kicker. Each state has its own requirements. In reference to the two articles cited above, California requires certificated teachers to have taken the education courses that Jefferds Huyck, the veteran teacher who held a Ph.D. in classics, didn’t want to take in order to continue teaching.
            It is more than disingenuous for California’s state superintendent to blame No Child Left Behind for the fact that his state requires teachers to jump through bureaucratic hoops to earn a teacher’s certificate. Indeed, the education reform law leaves decisions about what should and should not be required for a license or certificate entirely within states’ discretion. The law explicitly acknowledges that a state may choose to not apply licensing and certification requirements to teachers in charter schools.
            Huyck taught in a charter school. As long as he was teaching classes in his field, Huyck—with his doctorate in classics—would have met the legal provisions of No Child Left Behind.
            No fair blaming No Child Left Behind for cumbersome state certification rules.